Drips and Drops
by ChiisanaAnisa
Summary: Short drabbles on Naruto characters. Various Pairings, mostly SakSas, InoShika, Narutocentric, Kakashicentric, JiraiyaTsunade and NejiTenten
1. Romance Underneath TsunadeJiraiya

**Romance underneath**

**...oOo...**

Once Tsunade asked him why he didn't try to write anything else beside the perverted novels, like romance. He closed his eyes, a frown jumping on his face as he pretended to seriously think about it. Then he shrugged and said he simply never tried.

She called him lazy, shaking her head away and told him that he should try because that would be one book she'd like to read. Dark grin settled on his face and his hand cupped a feel of her ass which promptly earned him a slap that sent him in the next wall.

Tsunade never again asked him to write a romance novel.

**...oOo...**

He did write a romance novel, however. A novel with a story that makes history shame itself and hide in some dark corner and with a bittersweet ending that breaks hearts.

He wrote it a week after she died and all in one sitting.


	2. Just like Milk NeijiTenten

**Pairing: **Neji/Tenten

**Just like Milk**

With his eyes as white as milk he reads her like a book.

Turning one page when she throws all of her weapons, even the ones hidden deep within, at him, eyes on fire with anger and mouth set in a firm line of determination. _'Please, let him break through it' _she thinks and he reads.

Turning the second page when she hisses darkly under her chin, in the dead of the night with a kunai deeply lodged into her back, blood trickling down and soaking into her shirt. He narrows his eyes, and something akin to anger spirals in him, because she's hurt and he's right there next to her.. But _'still too weak' _she thinks and he reads.

Turning the third page when she stumbles in her tired footsteps and collides with his tall back, grasping his arms in a try to steady herself again. He can sense her breathing on the small opening of his shirt, and it's tingling on his skin and making him bite his tongue. _'Oh God, not again' _she thinks and he reads.

Turning the page twenty-two, when she's there, underneath and ready and so alluring that the very word should be criminal, but she's there. Just like that, with her hair spread all around her face, like a halo, and with her lips more rosy than normal and with her eyes closed in need. He can feel her against him, warm and hot and he's afraid to admit, completely and utterly his. _'I love you too much' _she thinks and he reads.

Page by page, with his eyes as white as milk he reads her like a book

Tenten is so very scared, on the border of _'I do', _and _'No, please', _there's that primal fear inside of her while she thinks about what's yet to come - when he knows her from heaven to hell and when he finishes with turning the last page.

And Neji with his bloodline, _('and eyes as white as milk' she thinks), _can without reading already see the written words, etched in time and Fate...

_The End_


	3. Team 7

**An:** _Team 7; in a weird friends/enemies/what are we? sort of way. Don't ask._

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**...oOo...

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Grass is green, sky is blue and blood is red.

Facts that we all know, we learn sometime during our childhood, between choosing if our ice-cream should be vanilla or strawberry and between learning how to properly hold a kunai.

Team 7 has it's own advantages and disadvantages. Virtues and faults. Rights and wrongs in the game of life. They all know these facts too.

Sakura spends her afternoons looking at the bright sky, twirling her thumbs and smiling freely until the sun is covered by far too many clouds to even count and her inner thoughts turn upside down and she thinks about all the if's and when's and why's. She wonders - perhaps, perhaps, perhaps - and a little death plays a solemn tune in the corners of her mouth.

Naruto spends his mornings slowly opening his eyes, blinking and still unaware of the world and his surroundings. Rising up, the sheets drenched in sweat and pain and hurt and midnight screams tell him a story he would rather forget, forever and ever. He blinks once more and wishes for the day to turn back to night because he can play dead then, and not pretend he's alive enough to be alive over the day.

Sasuke spends his nights wide awake, eyes open to the boundless limits and with his Sharingan activated. He's not afraid, of course not, he's just careful, careful a tad bit too much and with the dawn he has to teach himself how to snap back from imaginary to real in a matter of seconds.

He has to teach himself the facts of life he already knows, and has learned somewhere long ago. because the grass is green and the sky is blue and each one of them is in some manner of speaking - immortal. However, he bites his lip and clenches his hands, blood is the only thing that comes with an expirational date.

With Sakura and her afternoons and Naruto and his mornings, there comes a night when Sasuke doesn't need to re-learn that blood isn't immortal. He catches that fact like a little butterfly falls into a spiders web with sky on his left side and with grass on his right and realizes that he's completely and utterly screwed.


	4. Chidori Kakashi centric

**1. The birds**

Kakashi hates rocks.

He hates them with passion and when he's all by himself he uses any convenient technique he copied to smash as many large rocks or boulders as he can. Afterwards he slumps to the ground, feeling a bit more empty and a bit more exhausted then usual and allows his lungs to bring out a tired sigh.

For him - _Obito is dead, dead, dead - _that makes him laugh, but the truth is (and everyone who knows him, knows this too) that he rarely laughs, and even when he does the mask he so carefully carries on his face hides it.

**2. The light**

Kakashi hates white paper. Anything white, in fact, be it papers, cloth's, or pottery. He hates it with vengeance and tends to destroy everything completely white (pure and clean) with any given chance. Papers burn, easily - and he likes the fire and the colors, even though he doesn't feel the warmth, cloth's are either ripped apart or burned too - and by doing that he's only venting out, and pottery is good to use when he needs to smack one of his students or just pretend he's sleepy when it slips through his fingers.

White is the color - _of Rin who is gone or dead, gone or dead, and most possibly dead _- that makes him frown and something dark, too dark and too heavy and troubling tugs at his heart. His face often wears a painful expression when he thinks of her, but the mask hides that too.

**3. The speed**

Mask is a precious thing for him to have. Before he used to think that he's even more mysterious with it, that it ups his reputation as the 'Cool Guy', and when he finds out that isn't it he transfers the reasoning to hiding his face to simple - just because. And that works marvelously because Kakashi is a person that likes to hide, specially in shadows, although he has no blood relations to the Nara Clan.

The speed - _he's alive, alive, alive and it kills him to think about it _- is him, Hatake Kakashi, in so many ways (that kills him even more). He's the only one still here, alone, left behind like a weak puppy in a strong litter. He hates that with more passion then he hates some particular people because no matter how hard he tries the mask cannot hide the fact he's the one who lived.

**4. Chidori**

In one long night of thinking, Kakashi decides it's not good to dwell on dreams of what if, and why not. It strikes him as odd to see it just now, when he thought about it for far too long to count, but it takes him all of five hours to train himself to master the Chidori.

He takes the rocks and their breaking splinters (Obito is stored in his muscles); he takes the light and it's dazzling beauty (Rin is always in his blood); he takes the speed, because that's the only thing he can give that's left (he, himself is who he is) and combines it all to make the only technique that is his and his alone.

That night he also realizes that the mask stays on, so that no-one would see him for who he really is. Not a ninja who kills to live, not a teacher who teaches others how to kill (and live too, but that's not the point here, is it?), not a sparing partner that can't really beat his life-long rival, not anyone in special. Just a man with too many broken dreams, and hopes and with too many dead people he loved.

Most certainly not a genius at all, he muses, and the Chidori sparks to life for the first time.


	5. Strong Sakura centric

**Disclaimer:**_Well, as it seems Naruto has seriously decided to play with my plot bunnies. I have some ten or more small drabbles already on paper... But that still doesn't make me own him.

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**AN:** _Warning: This one is **yaoi/underage love**. Read on your own judgment, but don't complain to me._

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**...oOo..**

Sakura is strong and she knows that. Everybody else is kept in the dark about it but to her it doesn't matter, not really at all. Let them think that she is the weakest link in her team, that she should always be left behind or protected like a baby infant, hopeless and weak waiting to be taken care of.

She's proud of her strength, although it isn't always in her body, because the strength of mind and heart is what really matters. Kakashi told her that once (_no, not only once, _she reminds her self, taking a step), and it stuck to her web of thoughts as a flee does to a spiders web. It became her life motto, it guided her through the harsh missions they had when Sasuke would tend to step in front of her in a sign of protection (_yes, cold, but protection nonetheless, _and she's up the stairs). Or even Naruto beating the life out of the guy who gave her a small bruise on her hand.

She took it all in, stored it carefully in the boxes of her memory, and guarded them all like she would a garden full of special roses. Pink roses, with a smell that screamed pink, and softly whispered on the wind only for her to hear.

_I am strong_, she thinks in delusion and knocks on the door.

Kakashi told her, didn't he? He complimented her on her strength and on her growth in the past few years, and Sakura, herself, knew how much she has changed. She changed to most out of all of them, and still she kept it hidden from the public because to lose that secret would mean to lose another thing very dear to her.

But.

All it takes is one breath and one blink of an eye for her pretty, pink colored world of secrets and strength to shatter and fall apart.

While she waits for his door to open, she's recounting all her loses again. Kakashi helps her add them all up in a pretty little number that is far too high now to be neglected, really, but she tries. He pulls her in, into his arms and warm touches and lingering kisses (_without the mask, _she muses, _that's another secret that's just hers - and his _and kisses him under the chin, where she knows he likes it just soand she savors every little scent of him, every line of his face and his body because he's real enough to tell her that she strong.

She tumbles down with him on the bed, all hands and arms, and entwined legs and breathes deeply in the scent of lust (_not love, _she repeats in her head for god knows which time), and feels utterly broken and weak. When she's with him she doesn't need to be strong, and that's a fact she rather enjoys admitting to herself, even if it means betraying him, and his words of encouragement.

She slips into his world of half gray, half red eyes, and adores him for making her feel so much in so little time. And then, she gathers all her strength back and up and running through her veins because she knows when she closes her eyes she's going to see a picture that pains her much more brutally then any ninja weapon.

Behind her eyelids, with Kakashi's hands on her sides and his mouth on her breast, she can see Sasuke, his head thrown back, his eyes closed in pleasure, and Naruto kissing his throat.


	6. Static

**Static**

You're walking home the quiet way and step to step you stand still while a lick of spring sunlight pricks your skin. Pricks all afternoon as you wait for the sound of bell in your shop to ring out, but it doesn't ring, and it doesn't ring, until at last you throw a kunai at it just to break the silence. And then there's the noise of other visitors, coming in and out in clouds of laughter, and smoke and quick, but promising goodbyes.

But there's not him. He's not coming, again and again, and that fact alone forces you to make the biggest mistake of your life. You marry another man.

**...oOo...**

One day you find yourself longing for a child of your own, and you know that your husband can never give it to you because of that one mission he took, and he shouldn't have, but still did, in spite your protests. But you love him anyway.

That doesn't stop you from going through the narrow hallway of a building you haven't been in for over three years, nor does it stop you from entering that one room in particular. Coming in, you entrance the man sitting there, all high heels, and dark purple dress - you come into his room and this time you close the doors behind you all the way. Without saying anything you take off your dress and pull him to the bed with you.

He makes love to you in the clear light of the afternoon, with the sun on his back like someone's eyes watching carefully. But that doesn't bother you, because he makes love to you as if you were the most precious thing to him on the whole planet, and he makes you feel beautiful and loved. Just like he always did.

When it's over, with a heavy sight you get up and adjust your clothes, check your waist-band holding the hidden needles, with too much care as if the breaking of your marriage vows must have weakened the zips and buttons of your dress. With a bright smile that never falters, you step outside.

Six weeks later you are bent over the toilet-bowl, coughing and spitting up. You knows your husband can hear you in the other room, and he knows, but he doesn't say anything. Neither do you. It's a miracle, he must think in utter neglect and denial. It's a miracle that has to be believed. And it happens twice, your husband tells you with pure happiness on his face that breaks your heart little by little.

Second time around, when you come home, you drink a glass of wine, and go to sleep, holding tightly to the curve of his soft arm and it feels as if you're falling off the edge of the world.

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_An: Can you guess who the characters are?_

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_I'll let you know in the next one. (smile)_


	7. Victory Naruto Sakura

_**An:**_ _For Hououza; not quite happy-go-lucky, but close enough. Thank you for your constant support._

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**Victory

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He can see it so clearly, in slow motion, like a cat stretching itself after a long, long nap.

It's a quiet and a simple revelation, how Sakura doesn't know where she stands anymore - she seems a bit stuck in that one moment in time where she's been given two choices that would determine the rest of her life and yet she's not quite sure which one to take.

She's drifting in a rift of time, somewhere between that real first childish crush on Sasuke that she harbors so sickly and brokenly, and between his own gentle, encouraging smiles and ever watchful eyes. Every now and then he can catch her looking at him from the corner of her eyes, or how she tends to sometimes hide her eyes from him - now that she has to look up and up and up - because he's so much taller than her now, and he knows it frightens her.

But when she does look at him, directly in the eyes, it's rather easy for him to read confusion, surprise and a bit of panic in those green orb's of light and pureness he loves so. There's adoration too, but sometimes he thinks he has only imagined it.

Day by day, she starts looking at him more and more and he's pretty sure that she has finally decided which choice to take. The Kyuubi in him grins from ear to ear, all teeth and great satisfaction because he knows he has won.

_So much about dead-last, _Naruto thinks with love, and a little bit of victory threads his arms around Sakura.


	8. Good Enough Hinata Kiba

**An:** _This is for **Achillea** who requested Hinata/Kiba. I'm not so good at those two, but I hope you like it nonetheless._

_P.s. This it not proof-read, so please ignore possible mistakes. Thank you._

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**...oOo...**

**Good Enough**

**...oOo...**

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Hinata could never be cruel, that much is clear to him.

Neji is cruel, always was, is, will be. And that much is clear to her, nobody needs to tell her that.

She spends days, weeks, months and then years hearing him say - "You're not good enough." Always, it makes her cry and stumble and fall and find herself at total loss. She's sometimes too tired to even try to pick up all the pieces he has broken her into, scattered on the forest floor, or the Hyuuga garden or simply all over town.

Neji is cruel, and she thinks he shouldn't be like that, because he's the part of the Branch family (she accepts that information although she hates it with passion) and he should be loyal to her, or at least show some kind of dignity while looking at her.

Ironically , he never does. But another takes his place. It takes her a while to recognize the looks she has been given in the cold, crisp morning, just before the training starts, or in the grins he shares when he knows that she needs his help.

Kiba is very hard to win, in any aspect of that word, and Hinata doesn't even try very hard. He comes to trust her on his own, with soft, albeit gruff, 'good-mornings', or very sweet and seductive 'good-nights'. He teaches her some things she has forgotten they even belong in the lessons of life. How to stand up for herself, bite and bark back.

And then, one bright, sunny day she stands tall in the forest, her eyes are clear, so very clear that Neji doesn't even manage to finish his taunting judgment. She's not using the Byakugan and yet shivers are passing all over him and for the first time in forever Neji can feel something akin to dread.

Kiba is right there, behind her, arms at his hips, one fang barred and satisfaction on his face. Hinata leans back into him with a liberation and fluid moments she never possessed before, narrowing her eyes at her cousin. Neji frowns, but holds his mouth shut. He knows when not to speak and still, his mind is too preoccupied with Kiba's closeness to Hinata - it doesn't disgust him as much as he thought it would - instead he finds himself almost mourning.

A bitter laugh rings out, sharp and crystal in the shy of the afternoon. "No, Neji." She says, one hand grasping Kiba's over her stomach. "I can see it, you know?"

Neji's frown deepens itself and he clenches his fists. "What?" He forces out, because holding his mouth shut is hurting him more then just watching the couple before him. Briefly, waiting for her answer, he wonders how did Kiba manage to give her all that strength, and thinks he will never find it out.

Hinata, in an act from long ago, slowly lowers her eyes to the ground, and Kiba, sensing her reluctance, gently nips her on the throat. Neji slowly finds himself falling and losing. She raises her eyes, white tinted with a flecks of lavender and smirks. "I can see all of you and you know what, Neji-nii-san? You're not good enough."

Neji learns that Hinata can be cruel - after all she had him as a teacher.


	9. Multiplying Heroes Tsunade

**AN:**_ This is just me playing aroud with Tsunade. You can if you will take a deeper meaning, but I just wanted to give her a little, sad dance._

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**"Multiplying Heroes"

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_Heroes don't get happy endings in their lives, _she thinks looking through the round window of her Hokage office. With sorrow in her heart she admits to herself that this little town, that's hers now, is full of small heroes, but none of them will ever shine through as they should.

Her thoughts turn to Jiraiya, to him and his little lies and remarks, his dark and biting accusations, small bitter words that these days often leave his mouth. Open bitterness settles on her mind for a moment, and inside she curses Jiraiya for never showing her how to love, only how to despise. Maybe, if she treads deep enough - he has only shown her how to say 'No' and hate.

Lately she spends her days and nights, endless in counting all the tiny moments that are sometimes too many and sometimes too little in numbers for her to make a mistake in her calculations. And she curses him to Hell and back - again, again, and dammit, again - because he never showed her how to properly love.

She curses him in the empty places between her breaths, while she murmurs it to her chin - while she eats, drinks (_too much, too much), _trains, teaches, laughs (_bitter, bitter_)and lives.

She is not as deep thinking as some believe her to be, and how some want her to be, but simple calculations are quite easy for her to do. She can sit for hours and stare into nothing adding and deducting all the losses and them multiplying them with love. She doesn't quite get it herself, but at the end of the imaginary paper the ratio is always such that hate - _maybe it is just disgust, she wonders _- is a lot bigger than the rest.

So she curses Jiraiya for not telling her (beside everything else he tells her) how to love that she almost misses the fact she has come to love him - and that she's doing it rather perfectly. And when she finally sees that, when she finally accepts it as another miscalculated issues of her life, she laughs with a laugh full of wrong results. Because heroes do everything that way, so that it seems perfect, right?

Just like she does.

Tsunade spends her days and her nights adding and cutting off the minutes when she loves him and seconds when she hates him. In the end, when she draws the final line and multiplies it with lost chances and with chances that heroes have to get their happy endings...

Tsunade is enough of a gambler to recognize when she's so much into the minus side that she's losing.


	10. Dawn

_"Pazi čovječe da ne hodaš_

_malen ispod zvijezda"

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_"Be careful, human,_

_not to walk little under the stars"_

**_A.B. Šimić__

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...oOo...

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With the first raspy breath of dawn, night settles for the last time gently on her lips and dies there in quiet despair. In her mind there is a boy with black hair and onyx eyes, red and black and reverse, with a cold sinister smile and a regal posture.

She turns her green eyes mournfully to the world outside her window and her gaze catches birds flying off the rooftop across her apartment. A heavy sigh escapes her mouth and she wills herself away from crying again. It's a sad fact for her to admit that she is slowly, bit by little bit, going more and more insane as every day passes with deathly shadows and translucent hopes. She turns her head back to the world inside her room, closes her eyes, wishing herself away from this painful reality and from the golden haired boy laying next to her in bed.

He's embracing her too tightly for her to ever be let go and given a chance to escape to where she wants to be, and sometimes she's not even sure if the other one would be there waiting for her. She slips back into the world of dreams, restless and with tangible sense of loss in every part of what she has come to be.


	11. Night Wakings NejiTenten

_I'm sorry for not updating sooner. But, here's something nice and happy._

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...oOo...

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He woke up in the middle of the night, something on the end of his senses, telling him that something wasn't right. His muscles flexed and he stiffened in the bed, all thoughts of sleep going away instantly.

By instinct alone his hand went out to strike only the empty right side of bed. Sitting up he looked down at the hollow pillow and the coldness beside him, and his mind went through a frenzy of thoughts of where could she have gone. Turning his head around his eyes caught the light coming under the bathroom doors.

He didn't have to strain too much to hear the retching sound coming behind the doors. Frowning he pushed his legs over the bed edge and set them on the carpet, calling out. "Tenten? Everything all right?"

A grunt and a deep groan of pain answered him and he was on his feet in a second. He knocked on the door, now worried, his eyes alert and ready. "Tenten?"

Flushing.

Water running.

"I'm okay." She answered and opened the door. He expected to see her exhausted, because this was the third night in a row she has been sick and bent over the toilet, but there was a happy, almost goofy looking grin on her face and her eyes were sparkled with tears.

"I'm more then okay." She said, laying one hand on his shoulder. "Actually, I'm pregnant." She whispered, leaning in to hug him and bask in his warmness. Startled, he blinked once and then closed his arms around her. "Really?"

Pulling away she pushed herself up on her toes and kissed his seal. "Yes, really." And then he kissed her as if he has never kissed her before, slow at first, enjoying each touch and the brush of her lips on his own before the kiss depend and she felt herself melting away under his mouth and in his love.

That was the first time Neji laughed out loud for more than a few minutes as they spent their night in a silent, love making wake, both deliriously happy and in love with what the future will bring.


	12. Could Have SasukeSakura

_You were always quiet_

_I was always cold _

_Walking there beside you _

_Promises were gold _

_So I moved a little closer _

_But you took a step away _

_And the world that was between us has gone away_

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**...oOo... Could have ... oOo...

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It would have been so easy to accept what you had to offer. But that was too much for me. Always too fucking much - with all your little smiles and bright green eyes and neverending worry and love and patience and sometimes even quiet understanding.

That made me scream in the private recesses of my mind. I don't deserve you, that much is clear to me, but for some reason you can't get that fact through your pretty little pink head. It sickens me. How can you be so persistent in a thing that simply cannot even begin, let alone last? I never figured you out completely.

Why you love. Why you tend to forgive and forget the people you held dear and close to your fluttering heart. Sometimes like a mother taking care of her children and sometimes a scared lover left alone in the middle of the night with no promise of return. I never decided which one I liked the best.

Too bad.

When I really think about it, when I sit down in that cold and empty room, legs crossed and sins heavy on my back I let my thoughts drift over to you and to what might have been. Because in between then and now, in the little rift of accepting and refusing you again and again I can't help but think..

We could have been mighty good together.


	13. He knows ShikaIno

_**An:** Not quite what I was aiming for but good enough. I like Shikamaru as a character but I hate writing him. Oh, yes - thank you for the reivews till now!_

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**He knows

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Shikamaru is smart, he knows, even smarter then Haruno Sakura. And although he finds his smartness as a really troublesome thing, in the deepest corners of his mind he allows himself to be patted on the back and praised because of that.

Then again, as smart as he is Shikamaru sometimes feels the dumbest person ever when in presence of his female teammate, Ino.

She has the ability to smile just right, in the corners of her mouth there's a little twitch upwards just for him and he's speechless and his mind goes blank. She can frown and get very angry at him and say things he would never imagine to come out of her mouth and still, although he should of have predicted them, he doesn't and it leaves him stunned.

She can kick him down and drag him around like he's a ragged doll and she's the one holding the strings and in the same time it's enough to get one look from her and he'll be going up and up and up and up.

With no stopping.

Shikamaru as a person who finds most of things troublesome and very, very tiring finds himself at odds of cruel Fate when in the company of Ino.

Ino with her blue, almost white hair that flows softly on the wind and sometimes grazes his cheeks like the softest silk, Ino with her dark eyes that hide and reveal all in the same time, Ino with her strength and with her weakness that makes him hide from her and then protect her until he can stand no more.

It's funny for him when sometimes as he watches the clouds he can find her image in almost every one of the fluffy things floating in the wide sky and while he scorns himself for that he knows very well there's a smirk on his lips.

And when he finally kisses her, slowly and lazily - _just like he is _- he knows, oh he knows, that..

If your heart is empty, your mind doesn't matter.


	14. No ShikaIno

**An:** _Well... It makes sense to me.

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"No."

Pain.

There was pain.

Horrible, hot, hot, hot pain surging through her veins and pumping into her heart to settle there in complete peace and satisfaction. If she peaked in she could see it curling up around the makings of her heart, around everything that made her _her, _curling up and lying there in a haze of flashed grins full of teeth, grey eyes full of distant promises.

Pain.

And she couldn't move.

"You can't run anymore Ino." He said and for the first time in her life she hated him from the bottom of everything she was. Hate - it came unbidden from the forgotten corners of her troubled mind, it sneaked out, slowly, bit by bit underneath her bones and she felt it move. Move agonizingly slow, crawling into a direction she could not return from afterwards.

"Do you hear me?" He said.

She closed her eyes. _Yes, I hear you, _she answered back in her imaginary mind, and in reality she bit her tongue and then her lips just to stop herself from talking. _But I wish I never heard you in the first place._

Daring to raise her eyes in his direction she caught a glimpse of his dark hair and the sight alone almost made her retch. Something in her stomach churned and twisted, as if someone's hand grabbed and then pulled with brutal force and tried to pry it off and from her body. Bile rose up in her mouth and her throat narrowed like walls closing in and she lost her breath.

"Ino. You can't run anymore. Not from this."

She tried to neglect him and his accusing words, his nicely shaped eyebrows that were now pulled down in a deep frown of anger and frustration. She tried to turn away again, and stilled immediately after realizing that she couldn't - her muscles screaming at her to not try it again. But she treasured her freedom and she wanted it back. Back, back, back.

"I'll say it again, and again until it gets to your pretty head that it is true." He threatened and her mouth moved on their own.

"No!" She half screamed, half pleaded, her feverish eyes turning up and to the side to look at him, and suddenly she was drenched in sweat. _No_. She can't. _No_. He wouldn't.. Panic rose in her, building it's setting up and up and acid in her stomach burned her alive. "No." She repeated, in a low whisper with her eyes misting.

"Always so stubborn." He replied and moved closer, together with her. His hand was inches away from her face, and her own was twitching in emotion she didn't dare name. "Please." She tried, panic, hate, anger, and dread mixing in her brain and in her heart into a dangerous potion called 'yielding'.

Or letting go.

She wasn't sure which expression she despised more, because he was now dangerously close, his lips only a breath away from hers and she willed herself not to break when she heard him speak again. "I love you."

It came to her in waves, like the morning mist rolls in the town at dawn and felt her resolve tremble. "No." She said again, before his lips claimed her in a loving caress and her world exploded. Something inside snapped in half and suddenly she could move again, her first thought - _Run_.

But he was already pulling away, a slight, knowing grin on his handsome face. "Yes." He answered to all her 'No's' and Ino was suddenly shaking in recognition of what has come to pass. "Yes." She pushed the word through her mouth and everything in her settled back in place. Her heart slowed down and her mind rested for one glorious minute of revelation.

"Yes, Shika. Yes." She repeated to him, to herself and to the world and finally gave in.


	15. Map TsunadeJiraiya

**An:** _Once again, I don't know what exactly I was thinking, but it makes sense to me.

* * *

_

He sent a messenger just to tell me that he has found out who the killer was and that he's staying in the town for another night.

That idiot.

He sent a messenger just to tell me that. That he will spend one more night in that town, with people playing for money, and with someone filling his cup with sake again and again, as soon it gets empty. I try to perish that thoughts, and the pictures too from my mind when I lie down to sleep.

That doesn't come.

**...o...**

It's almost noon and he stumbles into the office, tired and tripping a bit on the doorway. "What the hell took you so long?" I start, pretending I never got the message in the first place.

With a smirk he takes two steps further into the office. "I'm glad to find you in such a good mood."

I snort and grab the nearest file, trying to look busy. "Well, it's all done. You'll get the report this afternoon." He continues joyfully and I cringe at his happy tone. How dare he? With hard steps against the floor, the whole room creaks in familiarity and I force my eyes to stay on the file. He pauses just before he closes the door, turning around. "When will you find the time," he starts, "to come and spend with me all the money I gained?"

My eyebrow develops a tick and I raise my eyes just enough to send him a glare. "If you don't, I'll find someone else to spent it on. Or with." He ends, as if he's joking again. But his tone is a bit heavier this time, and we both know that he means it.

There is a sound of crystal shattering when I throw the bottle at the door just as he pulls them after him.

**...o...**

We are.. we could say - friends. On the record. Off the record? We kiss after one round of drinks that shouldn't have been ordered because it's too much. We fight and end up sprawled on each other when he follows me to my training. We only kiss, nothing more. Even when wanting more.

And then, once, he pulls me close and kisses my hair, as if he was some distant cousin, or worse, my brother that gives only support and safety. That pains me more than the fact that we kiss.

I don't take him up on his offer and the next day he's off to another mission.

I spend days pretending that I don't miss him, and when he comes back he asks me out for another round of sake again. It takes me a long minute before I think about it, and about what I know will come after that drinking party and with pain in my heart I drop the cards on the table.

"No."

**...o...**

Before he leaves for, what he promised to be the last time, he stops and stares at me a bit too long before speaking. "Did you ever think about what will come after?"

It's a vague question that can be applied to everything and nothing at all, but we both know what he's thinking about. I lie.

"No, I didn't." And I laugh after every word said. "But you will?" He urges on and my laugh stops short. He waits in the dark of the night for my answer which never comes. He leaves, with all the un-replied chances and all mistakes heavy trailing behind him like a shadow.

I don't tell him that I dreamed of him dead that night. I don't wish him a safe trip, nor do I say goodnight. I don't tell him that I thought so much about it that I don't know what to think anymore or even that I wish to have that - _what comes after_. Somehow, deep in my heart I think he knows.

**...o...**

One year after, I sit still on the floor, buried in papers and files, and mission reports. There's a big map spread out in front of me and with reminiscing fingers I trail over it, trying to measure the distanced between us.

Funny how it's so much smaller on paper that in reality.


	16. Blues TsunadeJiraiya

**An: **_Continuation of the previous drabble. I think I dragged it out too much. Oh, well.

* * *

_

_Don't wish it away_

_Don't look at it like it's forever_

_Between you and me I could honestly say_

_That things can only get better

* * *

_

The map was curled under her bed, bent and out of shape, full of wrinkles, clearly over-used. He was back, in Konoha, in her life, her sweet, bitter, messy life - he's here and now and for good.

And she can't bring herself to care as much as she did when he wasn't here.

**...o...**

"Do you think that you love me more?"

When her eyes meet his, he has to look away, suddenly feeling uncomfortable by the intensity of her stare and the silent, unspoken pleading tone on her face. His eyebrows drop down, setting into a frown and he searches the words.

"Come again?"

She sighs, tired and old, and leans on the table with one hand. "You heard what I said."

He takes one long sip, and empties the whole cup. For a moment, one long, eternal moment he stares at the emptiness laid out before him - _is it her or the cup? _- and can't seem to find the right response this time.

She puffs out on the cold winter air as they leave the bar and they don't speak to each other the entire month afterwards. When there are no right answers, neither of them knows how to ask the wrong question.

**...o...**

It's cold again, and it's dark. For some unknown reason she feels as if she has lost something vital to her life, something that was once deeply rooted into her being, in the lines of her chakra and in the thoughts of her mind - but it's gone, or merely lost and she can't do a thing about it.

He hasn't been around much lately and it pains her more than she dares to admit. Foolish of her, she thinks with disdain, that she gambled and lost. Again. She's always losing and she's sick and tired of it. The day is slowly turning into night and her nerves are slowly getting fried, second by second and then she's tired of waiting, of this endless waiting and spinning in circles they have mastered as if it was some grand technique to learn.

With determined steps, she grabs the big Hokage coat, swirls it around and on her shoulders and swings the door open. He's there - _right there, as always _- standing, pale and exhausted. "If I loved you more than you loved me, that's what you asked? Is that the worst thing in the world? I feel what I feel, what I've felt for a long time. It doesn't work like you think it works Tsunade. I don't determine the strength of my feelings by measuring them against yours. They are independent, and if you married Dan then and really moved out of town, and never threw me a second look, I'd still feel this way."

It all comes out in a bubble of words, in a haste and in a haze she can't catch before he turns around on his heel and storms out of the building - runs away from her, from the routines of their relationship, runs away from what he thinks was a mistakes bound to happen.

Tsunade rages around her apartment that night on endless hours and in the setting of dawn burns the map with vigorous intent. Past is past is past is past and that's all it's ever going to be. Future is slipping away too quickly, too quickly, somehow sneaking past her with a dare and a hidden card in it's sleeves.

Tsunade thinks it's time for the last round, but this time - she's dealing.

**...o...**

He's not easy to find when he doesn't want to be found, but for god knows what reasons her chakra is tuned to his own and she could pin-point the exat location he's on even if he's on the other side of the world and very close to falling off the horizon.

There's still the smell of burning paper in her nose, and there are still the ashes of past (mistakes) in her blood, but something new blossoms in her heart and she doesn't dare refuse or stun its growth. Not that's too late for that, but rather that she's forgotten how to.

He's sitting one of the highest rooftops in all of Konoha and staring at the sun rising in the East. He's smoking, and minute to minute he shakes his pipe down and around to empty it, but she can see he's thinking deeply and that the action is merely a reflex of oldness.

"Jiraiya?" She seeks out, he flinches at the sound of his own name. A long sigh is heaved out when he stands up, throwing away the used pipe and turns to her. There is expectation on his face, the knowledge of what is to come, but he's not quite sure if the outcome is going to be good and bad, and for some reason he has the feeling as if he's fighting for his life.

She steps closer, barely by two steps and there is still great distance between them. Like it was on the map, small in measure, big in minds. "To end this: no, but I don't want you to think that I love you this much," she holds her thumb and index finger about a half inch apart, "and that you love me this much." She stretches her arms apart as far as they will go.

He nods, accepting her analogy and she grows frustrated. There's anger clearly visible on her face, in her eyes and in the way she's holding herself, he would even dare to say that she is somewhat sad.

"So that's it then, eh, Tsunade?" Jiraiya asks, hands on his hips and sorrowful gaze in his eyes.

Sun is almost up, and it's casting a glowing light of halo around her hair, and while her lips are firmly set in a small, narrow line he can see the ghost of a smile there. She's already turning around, intent on leaving when he stops her, his voice strong and deep in the clear morning air.

"Not like that, Tsunade." He says, holding his index finger and thumb just barely apart. "More like from me to you." He points out with his finger to the long distance between them. "That much."

She stares at him in wonder, as if she doesn't not believe what he's saying before she cocks her head to the side, hair falling over and in her eyes, and grins. "Funny, because it's the same from me to you." She points right back.

Jiraiya smiles back at her, satisfied and eager, but content. "Dinner?" He draws out slowly, but with a promise in his question.

A few steps and she's behind him, arms twining around his neck, holding him there, in place, with firmness and gentleness he knew she can show to him too. She props herself on her toes and leans to deliver a quiet whisper in his ear.

"Sake."


	17. Glad SakuraSasuke

She is not supposed to even know about it, but for once in her life she is glad that she does.

He's underneath her, shaking and drawing in quick shallow breaths, his hands are firmly gripping her legs, nails leaving their marks on the gentle skin. She bites back the moan of pain as it travels through her body and pushes herself forward, leaning with more weight against him.

He's never looked more beautiful to her than he does now, she thinks and licks her lips nervously. But this is it now, no going back anymore after this - how could she anyway? She's not supposed to do it, but she does.

Hands stretch out and up to his head and she cups his face in a tender gesture, pushing against his ears and cheeks. There's a smile on her face and her green eyes are shining with unshed tears.

It's all done now. All done, all done. No turning back after this point. And she loves him so.

Sakura gathers her chakra and it burns translucently a bright purple colour in the middle of the night as it pushes through her veins and into her hands. In a matter of seconds she forces the chakra into his brain and there's only a small surprised gasp of knowledge before his eyes flutter once and one last breath leaves his body.

Sasuke is dead and she knows that she's not the one supposed to do it, but is glad that she did.


	18. Medic SakuraSasuke

She decided to be a medic-nin because she learned very early in her life that she is far, far better at healing people then tearing them apart. She still tears them apart, of course - she needs to so she could repair them, but, and in her mind it makes perfect sense - you have to break something to be able to glue it back together.

Just like she tried to do with her team.

Which in the end proved to be too hard and too far gone for even trying, least being whole again. So she turned to teaching herself all that she could, all the techniques, all the jutsus, even the ones Tsunade hid from her in the darkest corners of the Hokage's tower. She wanted to learn it all, to absorb it in so when finally one day he would find himself on her table she would be able to stitch him up so good he would never again fall apart.

Neither in her hands, or before her eyes. She waited and spent her time in mastering her teachings. She waited for him to come back, broken and battered, bruised and cut all over, spilling into her hands. Waited for him to fall apart so she could finally show him how good she is at mending people and that she's more then capable to mend him too.

**...oio...**

Later, after it's done, she's tired and very low on chakra and she can barely breathe. But he's there, alive and.. He's there. Just a few heartbeats away. As he turns his head to say something - maybe even a thank you, who knows - she opens her mouth and rushes in, because she does not want to hear that obligatory thank you note from his lips.

"I still love you." She lets it slip, even though that's not what she intended to say, but it's out and she feels relieved for some reason. Some things are better left unsaid, and some things just have to be said.

He closes his eyes and turns his head away from her. There's a painful in-draw of breath, and she knows that his lungs still hurt from the operation, but there's something in the air telling her that he absolutely needs to say this to her.

"I know."

Sakura smiles. And that is that.


	19. Checkmate Shikacentric

_This young man lays alone but fastened to the ground_

_The sounds of fleeing feet and a crying' eye will be his last sound._

_What did we gain from all of this? Now was it worth a life?_

_We've thrown all our hopes away and set our dreams aside_

_..o.._

_..o.._

Sun is high up in the sky and the smell of burned flesh almost makes him gag. There is so much of it in the air - not just burning flesh, but blood too. That cold, cold, cold metallic, rotting smell that burns your nostrils and chokes your lungs and turns your stomach into live acid.

Screams of his teammates still echo in his ears, like a song that has been dragging on too long and waves it way into the memory nerves of his brain. With his intelligence he is sure they will never leave and that is a suitable punishment in itself.

Sun sparks the grass, and burns the blood even further and the stench spreads across the field of the dead. So much about victory or living happily ever after. There is no such thing like living, least happily when you are a shinobi. Because of that he doesn't open his eyes, doesn't want to - he knows already by heart where each of them lie, battered and bruised, some bloody all over and some with a small hidden smiles on their faces.

His is the final move. The shadows dance around him, and Shikamaru carries out the last strategy in this round. Like little wooden chess pieces, one by one they fell heavily onto the floor, losing in the game board called life. His figurine is the king and as he falls one last thought flashes through his already fleeting mind.

_Check-mate_.


	20. Stolen NejiTenten

_Trouble on the deep blue sea behind me_

_Vanish in air, never find me_

_I will turn your face to alabaster_

_Then you will find your servant is your master_

_..o.._

_..o.._

On the first day of spring, he said no to her.

Later, he thought that maybe he shouldn't have done that, maybe, just maybe he could have said yes, or tried to deliver the blow in a more careful way. But he knew her too well to shame her with careful words and gentle actions. So he didn't.

Clean and simple no was all he took, but she knew him even better and read what was underneath. That night she stole his first kiss from him (she doesn't count it as her first kiss, because it wasn't stolen - it was given), and left with it as the most precious thing in her possession.

And here they are now. Three years later, with new possibilities in front of them, with new life choices and paths laid out but still in choosing which one to take, afraid of them being dead end's or wrong ones. She's nervous and standing two steps from him, but to him it feels as if each of them was on the other side of the world.

There is a wide, screaming gap between them, ever since that day he refused her love with one word and one stolen kiss (he convinces himself it wasn't stolen from him - rather he gave it away as a parting gift), and with each new breath she takes he can see the gap growing even wider.

He can't stand it, because with his bloodline sight he knows there is more then just a gap between - there is sorrow, sorrow, sorrow and tiny bits of misplaced love in the cracks and it takes all his will-power not to clench his fists or hiss in anger. When did they grow so far away from each other?

Was it all because of that kiss? Stolen? Given? Whatever it was?

He doesn't know. Her breath hitches in her throat, as the needle moves away from her arm and he turns to look at her. Unshed tears are resting in the corners of her big brown eyes, and she's eating away her bottom lip. A frown mares his face while he observes her front teeth catching the raw flesh over and over again and the narrowing of his eyes warn her of what she's doing.

There's a quick flicker of shame in her gaze, but she shakes her head and brings her arm to her lips. There is a trickle of blood around the new tattoo and with sadistic smile she licks it off, slowly. Good, he thinks and knows that now things have shifted for the last time, they are set in a place they needed so long to find.

It is a cold winter's night, and with blood on her lips and secrets in her eyes Tenten for the second time steals a kiss from Neji. This time, he gives into accepting that it was stolen, and just lets it be.


End file.
